Perspective

Get some.

It's the best thing that will ever happen to you!

Goodbye

I don't like saying goodbye. It's a sad word. I've only actually ever said goodbye out aloud once, and that was when I was struggling to get any words out at all, and was followed by the only time I've walked away without looking back.

They're such definite words, and you don't know what is going to happen at the other end of them.

Good.

Bye.

When you say "see you later" or "bye bye" there's no sadness to them. Goodbye is essentially wishing a person or something well because you won't be seeing them again for a time.

On the flip side, if we don't say goodbye, we'd kinda be frozen in motion forever, never quite experiencing or tasting life, not going through doors, not facing our fears.

I like facing my fears, as daunting as they are, there's something powerful and relieving about doing that.

But I don't like goodbyes.

Would it be better to sit forever in one spot, content in not knowing, or to be unsatisfied?

Keats

Hello everyone! A message before you read this - I'm trying to memoise some poems, so I'm writing them up to remember them. This is me memorising. I do really like this poem, but it's kind of irrelevant to all - I'm just typing it up for memorising purposes - woo!

Have fun reading... possibly

Or not!

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense as though of Hemlock I had drunk

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe wards had sunk

Tis not through envy of thy happy lot

But being to happy in thine happiness

That thou, light winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of Beechen green and shadows numberless

Singest of summer in full throated ease

O, for a draught of vintage, that hath been

Cool'd for a long age in the deep-delved earth

Tasting of Flora and the country green

Dance, of Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker, full of the warm south

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

And purple stained mouth

That I might have a drink, and leave the world unseen

And with thee fade away into the forest dim

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

what thou amongst the leaves hast never known

The weariness, the fever and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs

Where youth grows pale and spectre thin, and dies

Where but to think is to be filled with sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow

Away, away for I will fly to thee

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards

But on the viewless wings of poesy

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards

Already with thee! Tender is the night

And haply the queen-moon is on her throne

Cluster'd around by all her starry fays

But here there is no light

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms, and winding mossy ways

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket and the fruit tree wild

White hawthorn, and the pastoral Eglantine

Fast fading violets, cover'd up in leaves

And mid-mays eldest child

The coming musk rose, full of dewy wine

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves

Darkling, I listen, and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful death

Called him soft names in many amused rhymes

To take into the air my quiet breath

Now, more than ever seems it rich to die

To cease upon the midnight with no pain

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down

The song I head this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emporer and clown

Perhaps the self same song found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home

She stood in tears among the alien corn

The same that oft times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, and faery lands forlorn

Forlorn, the word is like a bell

That tolls me back from thee to my soul self

Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, decieving elf

Adieu! Adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still strem

Up the hill side, and now tis buried deep

In the next valley glades

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music - Do I wake, or sleep?

Tamsin

Dear Tamsin,

I would appreciate if you didn't stalk my blog posts, then laugh at them. These are insightful messages about my life.

Also, I'm a dirty whore. But don't tell anyone.

Love, Berta Smelldar

Reading

Reading takes up a very large part of my day, whether it be reading literature, poetry, information or meaningless conversations written between people in class... I spend a lot of my time with words. What frightens me most about today is how meaningless words have become - we swear, insult each other and mock others, make fun of peoples titles. But when you take away someone'sn ame, what are they? IT completely changes your perspective on them. Like me for example, I was going to be called Berta, and I think that would have made all the difference in my life - I'd probably be some seedy girl who looked like an old woman and ate sandwiches in library corners by myself. I doubt I'd be who I am.

I think as a society, we've forgotten the importance of names and words, and I think that we need to start remembering the weight that words carry. Language has evolved with mankind and existed throughout our history... I think we've forgotten it's importance in our culture.

It's just like when a person dies - their title is all that's left behind, it's their memory. When you say "Napoleon" you instantly think of the short French man who conquered all of Europe, and all the connotations that come with the name. I think I sometimes forget just how important words really are.

Hello Jarred!

Today was my birthday! What a STELLAR day indeed! Thank you to everyone for making it such an excellent day - especially you Jarred! Helloooo!!!! I wear my sunglasses at night!

I am going to see a French movie now, about friendship!

Birthday

So, it's my birthday in 3 DAYS!!! CAN YOU TELL I AM EXCITED!?????!

I love birthdays. Maybe because I like attention, or maybe because it's the one time of the year where I get heaps of ridiculous presents that I cherish for the rest of my life. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that birthdays also make me cry, because I cry at birthday cards, ALWAYS. There is always at least one card that makes me tear up. They're happy tears though, so it's okay, sad tears make me feel... well, sad. Happy tears make me feel happy, like when you laugh so much you fall off your chair and crack your head open and then bleed to death, but it's okay, because you died laughing.

I have gotten some wonderful cards already! (Yes, I open my presents as they come... sorry Jarred, but that's how I roooolllllllll!) And some really nice presents, especially one from my friend who works in the office at our school who wrote all her writings down in a book for me, which was so, so brilliant! Thank you Liz :)

What can I say... birthdays are a great time of the year! When I was younger I liked birthdays because I got to eat junk food, and take lolly bags of junk food home, because my house was a junk food free zone. It was the best part of my birthdays when my mum was making fairy bread in the kitchen, that stuff is so delicious - coloured sugar + butter + bread = best food in the universe. You know it is, readers, you know it is.

Most of all, birthdays are about sharing and celebrating a person's life, which is the richest gift of all - though sometimes I think everyone, as Keats says, has been "half in love with death" there's nothing more beautiful than living life. So happy birthday to the universe I know! Though you are large and largely unexplored, and I never will get to see everything, and there's good and bad in you, you're much like myself - alive, with good days and bad, unknowing in many places, unsure, and yearning for a taste of sweet, sweet bread.